Hans Erni

An oeuvre from the Avant-garde untill the Postmodern

The work of Lucerne artist Hans Erni, who died in 2015 at the age of 106, is on the one hand rather -impressive not least due to its enormous variety of materials: painting in small and -monumental format, drawing and printmaking, -ceramics and -relief, poster and book art. On the other hand, this wealth corresponds to his -stylistic range: from realistic and cubist-inspired beginnings during the 1930s to purely abstract compositions and the virtuoso synthesis of the two forms of -expression in the 1940s. Erni's impressive con-tri-butions to surrealism, with their combination of -informal background and masterly figurative -re-presentation, prepare the ground for his works of the subsequent decades. After he had previously been politically -reviled, he now -realizes numerous public works and has become internationally known as one of the most important represen-tatives of Swiss art in the 20th century. His ever-keen interest in social, political and en-vironmental matters, his commitment to peace, social justice and nature conser-vation are reflected in his visual and graphic work, as well as his curiosity about -foreign cultures, which he has -expressed already early on in his images and books. The publication on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Hans Erni Museum provides an overview of the diversified collection of the Hans Erni-Stiftung.

Jubilee:
Hans Erni Museum Lucerne, 13/9/2019